I am a hypocrite. If you are not a space alien and are using opposable thumbs to grip your newspaper or ipad, then you, too, are a hypocrite.
Because I am an unapologetic Christian, my hypocrisy is more evident. I aspire to a code of conduct that is well published. Yet, I will still feel envy (‘Thou shalt not covet’) at someone else’s youth or attitude or their ability to grow hair on their head. I try not to speak untruly (‘Thou shalt not bear false witness’) but I am sure I do.
Why, however, would I accuse you, gentle reader, of also being a hypocrite? If everyone wrote down their code of ethics, I believe they would violate it frequently. Example: what man, when his wife asks his opinion about a hideous dress, subscribes to the philosophy that honesty is the best policy? (*While I don’t have this problem with my wife, read to the end of this commentary and I will provide you with two answers to that question that will win her approval while dissing the dress.)
If hypocrisy consists of behavior that contradicts a certain code of conduct, then my first exposure to hypocrisy was in high school. We had a typing teacher, Rita Maxfield, who was a large woman. She was constantly on a diet, a silent witness to her unwavering allegiance to weight loss being an ever present cup of raw carrot sticks on her lunch tray. It was there, right next to the three deserts. The deserts were, no doubt, a self-reward for her inflexible determination to become a wee slip of a girl.
Our modern society presents a menu of causes, injustices, and crises from which you can choose. Embrace too many good causes, however, and you have problems. I met a friend at the recycle bins yesterday. He had driven his huge SUV with its ratty catalytic converter on a twenty mile round trip to deliver a modest load of paper, plastic, and cans. You could almost hear the environment cough as he drove away. Of course, I was doing the very same thing.
Entire groups may be hypocritical. The people of Boston were in favor of integration and busing being levied upon the south in the 1950s and 60s. Everyone in the country certainly felt that the south was where racism persisted. But in 1965, eleven years after Brown vs. Board of Education outlawed segregation in the nation’s teaching facilities, the Boston schools had still not addressed the problem in their city. The state Racial Inequality law, a somewhat embarrassing restating of the federal law, was belatedly enacted. Confronted with their own children being forced into the busing controversy, the parents of Boston demonstrated and rioted. Interestingly, the state authorities (governor, lieutenant governor, etc.) who enforced this law had children who were either in private schools or in districts exempt from the mandate.
Another group of hypocrites is the secular humanists (essentially organized agnosticism and atheism). In two court cases in 1957 (Fellowship of Humanity vs. County of Alameda; Washington Ethical Society vs. District of Columbia) secular humanist organizations requested, and were granted, tax exemption on the basis of being religious organizations. Secular humanism was listed as a religion in a 1961 Supreme Court Case (Torasco vs. Watkins). In 1994, however, an Appeals court said that secular humanism and its tenets (i.e. evolution) were not religious in character and that the teaching of the secular humanist philosophy in public schools did not violate the separation of church and state (Peloza vs. Capistrano School District). So, I guess a secular humanist’s response to a question about whether his philosophy is religious or not would depend on who is asking.
Famous people can be hypocritical. The Kennedy family signed on to the fight against global warming, but opposed windmills being placed in sight of their Cape Cod property. Hollywood folks, always wanting to be on the right side of any crisis, are forced into one hypocrisy or the other when PETA wants to stop animal experimentation, including that being used to find a cure for AIDS.
Hamlet said ‘thus conscience does make cowards of us all.’ He could also have said ‘altruism does make hypocrites of us all.’ How, then, should we incorporate this reality into our lives?
Perhaps we should recognize all hypocrites as fellow sufferers, perhaps be a little less hasty to convict our fellow man of a crime of which we are also guilty. As Matthew Prior might say: ‘Be to their virtues, very kind. Be to their faults, a little blind.’ A lot less judgment and a little more love.
*Now, for those husbands who need an escape phrase when their wife asks them about her hideous dress, I will give you two:
Sweetheart, that dress is so ugly even you can’t make it pretty.
Sweetheart, that is a nice dress but you aren’t old enough to dress in that style.
Less judgment and more love will move us all in the right direction.
– Dennis Garvin
